Are Pigs as Smart as Dogs and Does It Really Matter?

An essay by David Crary on YAHOO News with the catchy title "Pigs smart as dogs? Activists pose the question" caught my eye as it has numerous others, judging by the 1,514 and continually increasing number of comments as of this writing. As a scientist who has studied the cognitive and emotional capacities of a variety of nonhuman animals (animals) and as an advisor to The Someone Project on which this article focuses, I found a number of points on which to comment using solid scientific research as a foundation.

First, as I've noted in a number of different places (for example, in an essay called "Are Dogs Smarter Than Cats?" and in another titled "Do 'Smarter' Dogs Really Suffer More than 'Dumber' Mice?"), as a biologist I don’t consider questions comparing the intelligence of different species to be useful because individuals do what they do to be card-carrying members of their species. Comparing members of the same species might be useful in terms of the ways in which individuals learn social skills or the speed of learning different task, but comparing dogs to cats or dogs to pigs says little of importance.

Another reason why these cross-species comparisons are relatively meaningless and get us on a slippery slope is because some people claim that supposedly smarter animals suffer more than supposedly dumber animals and that it's okay to use the dumber individuals in all sorts of invasive and abusive ways. There are absolutely no sound scientific reasons to make this claim and indeed, the opposite might actually be the case, but we really don't know. Lori Marino, founder of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, Inc., who also works on The Someone Project, says it well: "The point is not to rank these animals but to re-educate people about who they are. They are very sophisticated animals." I've emphasized the word who because these animals are sentient beings, whos, not whats. So, it's a matter of who we eat not what we eat when they wind up in our mouth.

What do "emotionally complex" and "emotionally sophisticated" really mean?

In discussions of the emotional lives of animals, the phrases "emotionally complex" and "emotionally sophisticated" also place us on a slippery slope because there are no data on which to make the claim that dogs, for example, are emotionally more complex than pigs or other food animals. Farm Sanctuary's Bruce Friedrich notes this as well. Thus, the claim that it's okay to slaughter pigs, for example, rather than dogs, because dogs would suffer more, is misleading and vacuous and there are no data to support it. All of these mammals, and all other mammals, are sentient beings who share the same neural architecture underlying their emotional lives and who experience a wide spectrum of emotions including the capacity to feel pain and to suffer. All one has to do is look at available scientific literature to see that millions upon millions of mice and other rodents are used in a whole host of studies the point of which is to learn more about pain in humans. Yet, despite the fact that we know that mice, rats, and chickens display empathy and are very smart and emotional, they are not protected by the United State's Federal Animal Welfare Act.

Would you do it to your dog?

Mr. Crary's essay does raise some important points that are worth noting. Research shows that many people who eat meat are indeed concerned with the level of intelligence of the animals who find themselves in their meal plan, so discussions about the comparative intelligence of other animals are indeed important.

Also of interest in the question "why do some people have radically different views about other animals?" Indeed, the titles of two very interesting books raise this question, the first by Psychology Today writer Hal Herzog called Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals and the second by Melanie Joy called Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Answers to questions such as these are being sought by researchers interested in anthrozoology. I always like to ask people if they would do something to a dog that would cause them prolonged and intense pain and suffering, such as that endured by food animals, and the most usual answer is "no", marked with surprise and incredulity about why I would ask that question in the first place.

Claiming other animals are smart or are deeply emotional beings is not "humanizing" them

Some of the comments by opponents of The Someone Project also need some further discussion. For example, David Warner of the National Pork Producers Council claims, "While animals raised for food do have a certain degree of intelligence, Farm Sanctuary is trying to humanize them to advance their vegan agenda -- an end to meat consumption." While seeking a vegetarian or vegan world, or a world in which meat consumption is drastically reduced, is among the goals of many people, claiming that other animals are intelligent or have rich and deep emotional lives is not an attempt to "humanize" them. Indeed, when we pay attention to solid evolutionary theory, namely Charles Darwin's ideas about evolutionary continuity, we see that we humans are not the only smart, sentient, and emotional beings. Indeed, it's bad biology to rob nonhumans of their cognitive and emotional capacities and we're not inserting "something human" into these animals that they don't already possess.

Along these lines, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, underwritten by world-renowned scientists, notes that available scientific data show clearly that all mammals, and some other animals, are fully conscious beings. It's clear that the time is right for a Universal Declaration on Animal Sentience that involves people personally taking responsibility for the choices they make when they interact with other animals. The time is now to shelve outdated and unsupported ideas about animal sentience and to factor sentience into all of the innumerable ways in which we encounter other animals. When The Cambridge Declaration was made public there was a lot of pomp, champagne, and media coverage. There is no need to have this fanfare for A Universal Declaration on Animal Sentience. It can be a deep, personal, and inspirational journey that comes from our heart and also has a strong and rapidly growing evidence-based foundation.

Finally, the conclusion of the YAHOO News essay deserves some more attention. Janeen Salak-Johnson, a professor in the University of Illinois Animal Science Department, claims, "she favors a 'happy medium' and contends that campaigns such as The Someone Project go too far in trying to equate 'production animals' with household pets." Furthermore, according to Professor Salak-Johnson, "We can't let all these animals roam free — it's not an economically sustainable system... Yes, we have to fulfill our obligations to these animals, but is it fair for us to starve the world?"

The Someone Project is simply raising consciousness about who food animals are and stays well within the bounds of available scientific evidence. Furthermore, no one I know who favors a vegetarian or vegan diet believes that food animals will roam free if they're not eaten. The way in which we could fulfill our ethical obligations to these animals would be to stop factory farming right now and allow those animals who find themselves in these horrific places to have a good life. And, we would not be starving the world. There are many more humane alternatives to factory farms and indeed, as people come to realize that they are eating pain and suffering, non-animal meals will likely become more common.

Pardon our obliviousness to the pain and suffering of other animals

Who we eat is on the minds of many people and the conclusion of a recent essay in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof called "Can We See Our Hypocrisy to Animals?" is a good way to end this essay. Mr. Kristof writes, "May our descendants, when, in the future, they reflect uncomprehendingly on our abuse of hens and orcas, appreciate that we are good and decent people moving in the right direction, and show some compassion for our obliviousness."

Marc:
This post is unbelievably timely for me. I have spent the last week tracking down research on pig cognition for a chapter on animal intelligence in a book I am in the middle of writing on animals and creativity. It has been a frustrating experience. There was more than enough material on other animals such as primates, dolphins, even ants (the "even" is only to indicate the surprise many people have demonstrated when they found out I was including ants in the "intelligence" chapter). The amount of peer-reviewed scholarly publication on the intelligence of pigs is quite small when compared to that of many other animals.

Your point about the relative meaninglessness of comparing the intelligence of species allowing some people to claim that "supposedly smarter animals suffer more than supposedly dumber animals and that it's okay to use the dumber individuals in all sorts of invasive and abusive ways" is certainly important and problematic for opening our eyes to the very real value of all animals as the particular species they are.

I found, however, in reading through the studies on pig cognition that despite the discussions of pigs' abilities to pass the mirror test, specific examples of their ease in learning from observation, their obvious intelligence in parsing and acting on linguistic and behavioral directions from a different species, us, the results of these findings were constantly filtered through the end goal of using these same intelligent and socially complex beings in either biomedical research or for slaughter and consumption. Those goals are obstacles to allowing the results, in this case, the obvious intelligence of pigs, to be visible.

It seems to me that, like beauty, finding a particular species intelligent (or dumb) is in the eye of the beholder. And that beholder, even an "objective" scientist, may be filtering what they find through similar blindfolds to those that keep us thinking there is only one kind of beauty.

The question is not, "Do animals think and feel?" The question is, "Are we capable of recognizing thought and emotions in a being which we have been taught is inferior to us?" My experiences with dolphins suggest that if people REALLY understood how much other species think, feel and love, it would shake society in general, and human chauvinism in particular, to its roots. Every major religion (except possibly Buddhism) would be fundamentally challenged.

For any reader of Marc's wishing to learn more about the intelligence and emotional lives of chickens - not in a demeaning laboratory setting but in a semblance of the real world in which chickens function, make decisions and express themselves naturally, I recommend my essay "The Social Life of Chickens":

This essay, under the title of "The Mental Life of Chickens," appears in EXPERIENCING ANIMAL MINDS: An Anthology of Animal-Human Encounters, ed. Julie Smith & Robert Mitchell, Columbia U Press, 2012.

Ranking animals' intelligences/emotions into hierarchies from top to bottom is one of the silliest uses of human intelligence, having no relation to the real worlds, experiences and evolutions of real creatures living their lives, raising their families, dealing with the daily requirements of life on the planet. This ranking of cognitions among animal species is similar to applying the rigid, static term "pecking order" to the complexly fluid dynamics of normal chicken societies.

Thank you for sharing the link to The Social Life of Chickens, I enjoyed it tremendously. As a person who has raised chickens for 17 years, I've long known they are incredible creatures packed full of personality and emotion. If people only took the time I think they'd find all animals to be incredibly engaging, clever, and emotional beings.

Scientific rankings as to the comparative intelligence of farm animals versus "pets" has little relevance to the broader ethical question of how these various non-human animals should be treated by humankind. Need I remind anyone of the oft-quoted, and particularly germane to this discussion, views of Jeremy Bentham expressed TWO CENTURIES AGO: "... a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable, being than an infant of a day or a week or a even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? ..."

How can we hope to agree on--much less accurately measure--the intelligence of other species, or to compare the average intelligence or the distributions of intelligence of separate species, when we can’t agree on how to measure the intelligence of our own species? As Bernard Rollin, Ph.D., states, there is no morally relevant difference between humans and animals which can rationally justify not assessing the treatment of animals by the machinery of our consensus ethic for humans.

When someone tries to compare animal intelligence or sentience across species, they often do so to put our minds at ease for committing unspeakable acts against nonhuman animals, as Dr. Bekoff suggests above. But it can sometimes be used to further the cause of the non-human animals. India just recognized dolphins as non-human persons. Spokespeople referred to the 2010 Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans, and cited cetaceans’ complex behaviors, intelligence and cultures.

Shills like David Warner and Janeen Salak-Johnson will continue to try to reframe the discussion toward (poorly-grounded) arguments of “feeding the hungry” or fantasies of billions of farm animals magically let loose on the countryside, but Nicholas Kristof is right. People are moving in the right direction, however slowly.

ng the woman come to feel miserable or maybe a little broken because of the harried test in real friendship. Additional adult males choose many people wear need to help danger placing a woman down, hence wait any specific in contact with and also bo.

Those animals may be sentient and show some rudimentary counterparts to things like empathy or love but it is NOT the same as for humans.

Those animals do not have a concept of those things, they are ignorant and oblivious to them. They have no idea about life, death and their place in the world, neither do they care. They fear death not because they don't know what awaits on the other side but because the fear of death is instinctively programmed into them.

And to say they are able to love is just nonsensical. What would this love be based on? Pheromones, instinct, which other beings smell the best or offer them the most food and shelter? Human love is clearly far more complex, too complex to be even compared to what animals could be capable of.

They are mainly driven by their instincts, they do NOT reflect about themselves. How can anyone in their right mind speak of these creatures in a way CLEARLY showing parallels to how one would speak of humans and then claim there is no intention of humanizing them? That is some pure bullshit right there. They may not be inanimate objects but they certainly are not persons.

You strive to be more than animals, you even grow arrogant enough as to introduce the idea of a new species of "homo empathicus" yet you utterly fail to see that no animals besides humans even begin to try to walk on that same path.

Some animals do show a capacity for self reflection. Rats, for example, have demonstrated metacognition, the ability to think about thinking, in tests, and when given a lever to opt out of a test where they don't know the answer, they will start using it as the 'questions' get more difficult, showing that they do think about what they do or do not know. Test have also shown that rats are capable of true regret (actual regret, as opposed to simply being upset that unpleasant things are happening).

Rats also show empathy and compassion, freeing another rat that they recognize, then offering them food instead of taking the food for themselves while the other rat is trapped, and rhesus monkeys have been known to starve themselves for three weeks rather than pull a lever that would feed them, because they were aware that the same lever would shock the other rhesus monkey.

While it isn't necessarily true that every species is driven by emotions of the same complexity, it's equally foolish to paint all species with the same brush of simplified emotion that's only geared toward base needs. Social animals will show preferences for specific other members of their group over others, have individual opinions, and if they can particularly like another member of their group over others, sometimes even in a context where mating is not relevant to their like, then it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that this particular like of one another could be strong enough to constitute love, particularly in a species that demonstrates self-sacrifice for another on the level of what rhesus monkeys demonstrate.

I have a doctorate and completed several advanced post-doctoral programs. I have studied the animal kingdom for over 20 years and have some complicated conclusions, but due to space limitations, I will need to be conclusiory and brief, but I assure you every fact is documented and sourced to a cited source, study, report, experiment, etc. Of all the species, primates are the most intelligent with humans being at the top of the list, though there are situations with humans being less intelligent in individual circumstances (I am sure you all know someone like this). So, without letting a lot of science and detail get in the way, the top ten:
1. Humans
2. Orangutans
3. Chimpanzees
4. Monkeys
5. Gorillas
6. Dolphins
7. Pigs
8. Elephants
9. Parrots
10. Geese

These are important animals and studies show with advances in genetics, they will become our partners in dominion on this planet with demands for input into Government, representation, and rights as the sovereign beings they are. With possible voting rights at stake, the political parties are trying to influence which are recognized as sentient beings with extended rights to include voting. Unfortunately for democrats, studies show that when given logical choices, most of the animals prefer republicans and republican and conservative policies. The exception is the Monkeys. Of the list, Pigs are predicted to have the biggest leaps and evolve appendages and vocal cords to allow it to manifest their true intelligence. Pigs are the real story here and many of them may qualify for the top ten percentile on the human scale of intelligence. We must immediately cease slaughter of pigs for meat. We can switch to eating more beef, chicken, and substitute pork products can be made out of turkey, which are some of the dumbest animals. Unfortunately, dogs are not that smart with cats far behind. Pigs will most likely have cats and dogs for pets because of their animal instincts allowing them to communicate across species to include human languages. Pigs have shown a remarkable multi-lingual talent. Pigs will likely take over many pets from humans by talking them into escaping to their care. At an extreme, the top percentage of the pig population will keep the bottom percentage of humans as pets. Other pigs will accumulate wealth and hire the services of humans, in effect rendering them into roles as pets. In addition to halting consumption of pork and slaughter of pigs, all responsible humans should adopt pigs as pets to curry favor with the species. It is also recommend to disposes ownership of dogs, cats, and other pets to prevent pigs from taken them over and learning valuable inside information about humans. The current adoption program will attempt to mask the true human nature as we seek to reform to prevent the pigs from finding out and telling the other animals.

I've studied Neuropsychology for many years - though I certainly don't have a doctorate - and everything you describe aligns with my academic knowledge of both evolutionary biology and cognitive development.

The question remains, however, whether the human consumption of other animals is unnatural.

Do you think that because we have achieved perspective more advanced than any other species, we now have an ethical responsibility to extricate ourselves from Nature's practices?

If so, does that then mean our advanced cognition is essentially unnatural at this point?

Does the platform of The Someone Project allow for the ethical consumption of animals?

Whales and dolphins are clever because they communicate with each other on a high level. That is also characteristic for humans. But humans originated from animals with hands that enabled them also to develop technical capacities.
The real cause for this is the power of the brains to invent manipulations. Dolphins can only manipulate water (by generating vibrations in water which have a meaning) but humans have hands that built a high developed society. See www.withouthandsnointelligence.nl